mjanes 's List: Miscellaneous

• Japanese beetle
• It is not very destructive in Japan, where it is controlled by natural enemies, but in America it is a serious pest of about 200 species of plants, including rose bushes, grapes, hops, canna, crape myrtles, and other plants.
• It is thought that beetle larvae entered the United States in a shipment of iris bulbs prior to 1912 when inspections of commodities entering the country began.
• The life cycle of the beetle is typically one year in most parts of the United States, but this can be extended in cooler climates; for instance, in its native Japan, the beetle's life cycle is two years long as a result of the higher latitudes of the grasslands required for the larval stage
• During the larval stage, the Japanese beetle lives in lawns and other grasslands, where it eats the roots of grass

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• The multicolored Asian lady beetle made its way into the United States through a number of accidental and planned releases. There are several reports that this species was accidentally brought on ships to various ports, notably New Orleans and Seattle. This lady beetle was also intentionally imported from Russia, Japan, Korea, and elsewhere in the Orient and released in the United States as part of a Federal effort to naturally control insect pests in trees.
• the multicolored Asian lady beetle is now well established in the United States, where it currently thrives in many parts of the Midwest, East, South, and Northwest. This nonnative species appears to be displacing some of our native lady beetles in Ohio.
• The adult stage is the longest with some lady beetles living up to 2 or 3 years.
• The multicolored Asian lady beetle is an important predator that consumes aphids and scale insects on trees, shrubs, and agricultural crops.
• Homeowners often express concern and aggravation with these nuisance pests. During late autumn, homeowners complain that multicolored Asian lady beetles cluster on the sides of houses; "crunch" under foot; get into food and drinks; alight on hands, arms, and other parts of the body; and sometimes enter the ears and mouth. The lady beetles can be so numerous that they appear to be "raining" outdoors or swarming like bees.
• Unlike our native species of lady beetles, the multicolored Asian lady beetle seeks protected hibernation (overwintering) sites in and around buildings. They may occur in any type of structure. Because these exotic lady beetles readily occur on trees, homes in forested areas are often infested.
• Multicolored Asian lady beetles seek protected sites where they can hibernate. Some may overwinter underneath siding, roof shingles, landscaping timbers, or leaf litter.
• When lady beetles are disturbed, they defend themselves by exuding a yellow-orange body fluid, which is their blood. This defense mechanism is termed reflex bleeding. The blood has a foul odor and can permanently stain walls, drapes, carpeting, etc. Thus, do not crush or swat lady beetles so as to minimize their defensive behavior.
• Although an uncommon occurrence, multicolored Asian lady beetles have been reported to nibble, nip, or "bite" humans. These lady beetles are not aggressive toward humans, and they simply may be examining an unfamiliar substrate or they may be seeking moisture. Their occasional nibbling is not reported to break the skin or draw human blood.
• Some individuals report an allergenic response to lady beetles. Although published reports are uncommon, multicolored Asian lady beetles apparently can cause inhalant allergies. These allergies clear up once the lady beetles are removed.
• Multicolored Asian lady beetles do not carry disease organisms. They do not eat wood, building materials, or human food. In fact, multicolored Asian lady beetles do not consume food while overwintering, but instead rely on their stores of body fat. Otherwise, they eat aphids and other soft-bodied insects.

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• Lowering your triglyceride levels through diet is not difficult. It requires placing restrictions on sugars and grains.
• Carbohydrates should be the focus, specifically sugars and grains. Try to replace sugars and grains with green leafy vegetables where possible.
• Endeavor to work out a minimum of 3 times per week for 30 minutes or more, mixing it up between aerobic and anaerobic (resistance) exercises.

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• The Triglyceride levels are defined as follows:
   

   

  • Normal: Less than 150 mg/dL

     

  • Borderline High: 150-199 mg/dL

     

  • High: 200-499 mg/dL

     

  • Very High: 500 mg/dL or above

• the incandescent light bulb is not very innovative. It hasn't changed much since Thomas Edison introduced it in 1879. Even today, it still generates light by heating a tungsten filament until it reaches 4,172 degrees Fahrenheit (2,300 degrees Celsius) and glows white-hot. Unfortunately, all of that white light is not very green. A good deal of electricity -- electricity from coal-fired powered plants responsible for spewing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere -- is required to make an incandescent bulb burn brightly. Only 10 percent of that juice goes toward making light. The rest is wasted as heat.
• Instead of a glowing filament, CFLs contain argon and mercury vapor housed within a spiral-shaped tube. They also have an integrated ballast, which produces an electric current to pass through the vaporous mixture, exciting the gas molecules. In older CFLs, it took several seconds for the ballast to produce enough electricity to ramp up the excitation. Newer CFLs have more efficient ballasts and require a shorter warm-up. Either way, when the gas gets excited, it produces ultraviolet light. The ultraviolet light, in turn, stimulates a fluorescent coating painted on the inside of the tube. As this coating absorbs energy, it emits visible light.
• CFLs use significantly less energy -- 75 percent less energy than incandescent light bulbs. That means CFLs require less wattage to produce an equivalent amount of light. For example, you could use a 20-watt CFL and enjoy the same amount of light as a 75-watt incandescent. If every home in America made one such swap, enough energy would be saved in one year to light more than 3 million homes
• Replacing a standard 60-watt bulb with a 13-watt CFL can save a single household $30 in energy costs over the life of the bulb [source: General Electric]. Even with the higher price tag of CFLs -- you'll pay $2 to $4 for a CFL versus 30 to 40 cents for a typical incandescent bulb -- they still save you money. That's because CFLs last a long time. In some tests, they burned brightly for 10,000 hours, whereas standard bulbs burned for just 800 to 1,500 hours
• Several manufacturers make compact fluorescent light bulbs that can be used with dimmer switches and in three-way lamps. And many CFL bulbs can be used outdoors as long as the fixture is enclosed. Most importantly, they give off good light. In a 2007 study conducted by Popular Mechanics, CFLs burned almost as bright and produced a better quality light than a 75-watt incandescent bulb
• If there is an ugly truth about CFL bulbs, it's the mercury they hold within their glass covers. Mercury is a persistent and highly toxic chemical.
• mercury vapor is required to convert electrical energy to radiant energy. When stimulated by electric current, mercury vapor inside a CFL produces ultraviolet light, which is re-radiated as visible light when it strikes the fluorescent compound, known as phosphor, painted on the inside of the bulb. No other element has proved as efficient in this process, so even though the amounts of mercury used in bulbs has decreased over time, a small amount of mercury is still required for CFLs to function properly.

• And none of the chemical is released as long as the bulb remains intact.

    

  A broken CFL bulb, however, can expose a person to mercury vapor. A tiny amount of solid mercury powder can also be released. For these reasons, extra caution should be taken when cleaning up a broken CFL. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommends following four easy steps:

    
    
  1. First, turn off your central heating or cooling system so fumes aren't moved from one room to another. Then open up the windows and let the room ventilate for 15 minutes.
    
  2. Next, it's time to clean up the broken bulb. Put on gloves to make sure you don't touch any of the mercury powder. Use a piece of cardboard to scoop up large pieces of glass. Switch to sticky tape to pick up small fragments and shards. Don't use your vacuum cleaner, and make sure all broken pieces, tape and cardboard are placed in a plastic bag.
    
  3. Finally, wipe the area with a damp paper towel and place the used towel in the plastic bag, as well.
    
  4. Seal the bag and immediately throw it away.
• you should realize that compact fluorescent bulbs are considered hazardous household items, a category that also includes paint, batteries and thermostats. You must dispose of such items properly, which means you can't simply throw them away in household garbage.
• IKEA was the first retailer to provide free disposal and recycling of used CFLs. The Home Depot joined IKEA in 2008 by launching a national in-store consumer CFL bulb-recycling program in all of its nearly 2,000 locations. Some Ace and True Value stores are offering similar programs.

• As recycling becomes easier, the CFL revolution will only gain momentum. Many think that the spiral-shaped bulbs will be a brief evolutionary step toward the even more efficient light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs. A 1.3-watt LED bulb uses less electricity than a 9-watt CFL and can last for up to 11 years [source: Peterson]. Better yet, it doesn't contain an atom of mercury.

  But even LED bulbs have their tradeoffs. They're not very bright, and they're exorbitantly expensive. Until manufacturers overcome those two issues, CFL bulbs will likely have the spotlight all to themselves. 

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• The U.S. Prime Rate is a commonly used, short-term interest rate   in the banking system of the United States. All types of American   lending institutions (traditional banks, credit unions, etc.) use   the U.S. Prime Rate as an index or foundation rate for pricing various   short-term loan products. The Prime Rate is consistent because banks   want to offer businesses and consumers loan products that are both   profitable and competitive. A consistent U.S. Prime Rate also makes   it easier and more efficient for individuals and businesses to compare   similar loan products offered by competing banks.
• each U.S. state does not have its own individual Prime   Rate, so the "New York Prime Rate" or the "California   Prime Rate" are in fact the same as the United States Prime   Rate.
• Traditionally, the WSJ Prime Rate was determined by polling thirty   (30) of America's largest banks. When twenty-three (23) of those   30 banks had changed their prime lending rate, The WSJ would respond   by updating its published Prime Rate. Effective December 16, 2008,   however, the WSJ now determines the Prime Rate by polling the 10   largest banks in the United States. When at least 7 out of the top   10 banks have changed their Prime, the WSJ will update its published   Prime Rate.
• Providers of consumer and commercial loan products often use the   U.S. Prime Rate as their base lending rate, then add a margin (profit)   based primarily on the amount of risk associated with a loan. Moreover,   some financial institutions use Prime as an index for pricing certain   time-deposit products like variable-rate Certificates of Deposit.
• the Prime Rate is an index, not a   law
• The U.S. Prime Rate is invariably tied to America's cardinal, benchmark   interest rate: the Federal Funds Target Rate (also known as The   Fed Funds Target Rate.) The Fed Funds Target Rate is set by a committee   within the Federal Reserve system called The Federal Open Market   Committee (FOMC).   The FOMC usually meets every six weeks, and it is at these meetings   that the FOMC votes on whether or not to make changes to the Federal   Funds Target Rate. When the Fed Funds Target Rate changes, it is   almost a certainty that the Wall Street Journal Prime Rate will   also change.

• Since the second quarter of 1994, a   rule of thumb for the U.S. Prime Rate has been:  

  U.S. Prime Rate = (The Fed   Funds Target Rate + 3)

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• The best-known types of malware, viruses and worms, are known for the manner in which they spread, rather than any other particular behavior. The term computer virus is used for a program that has infected some executable software and that causes that software, when run, to spread the virus to other executable software. Viruses may also contain a payload that performs other actions, often malicious. A worm, on the other hand, is a program that actively transmits itself over a network to infect other computers. It too may carry a payload.

   

  These definitions lead to the observation that a virus requires user intervention to spread, whereas a worm spreads automatically. Using this distinction, infections transmitted by email or Microsoft Word documents, which rely on the recipient opening a file or email to infect the system, would be classified as viruses rather than worms.

   

  Some writers in the trade and popular press appear to misunderstand this distinction, and use the terms interchangeably.

• For a malicious program to accomplish its goals, it must be able to do so without being shut down, or deleted by the user or administrator of the computer on which it is running. Concealment can also help get the malware installed in the first place. When a malicious program is disguised as something innocuous or desirable, users may be tempted to install it without knowing what it does. This is the technique of the Trojan horse or trojan.

   

  In broad terms, a Trojan horse is any program that invites the user to run it, concealing a harmful or malicious payload. The payload may take effect immediately and can lead to many undesirable effects, such as deleting the user's files or further installing malicious or undesirable software. Trojan horses known as droppers are used to start off a worm outbreak, by injecting the worm into users' local networks.

   

  One of the most common ways that spyware is distributed is as a Trojan horse, bundled with a piece of desirable software that the user downloads from the Internet. When the user installs the software, the spyware is installed alongside. Spyware authors who attempt to act in a legal fashion may include an end-user license agreement that states the behavior of the spyware in loose terms, which the users are unlikely to read or understand.

• Once a malicious program is installed on a system, it is essential that it stay concealed, to avoid detection and disinfection. The same is true when a human attacker breaks into a computer directly. Techniques known as rootkits allow this concealment, by modifying the host operating system so that the malware is hidden from the user. Rootkits can prevent a malicious process from being visible in the system's list of processes, or keep its files from being read. Originally, a rootkit was a set of tools installed by a human attacker on a Unix system where the attacker had gained administrator (root) access. Today, the term is used more generally for concealment routines in a malicious program.

   

  Some malicious programs contain routines to defend against removal, not merely to hide themselves, but to repel attempts to remove them. An early example of this behavior is recorded in the Jargon File tale of a pair of programs infesting a Xerox CP-V timesharing system:

   

   

  Each ghost-job would detect the fact that the other had been killed, and would start a new copy of the recently slain program within a few milliseconds. The only way to kill both ghosts was to kill them simultaneously (very difficult) or to deliberately crash the system.^[9]

   

   

  Similar techniques are used by some modern malware, wherein the malware starts a number of processes that monitor and restore one another as needed.

• A backdoor is a method of bypassing normal authentication procedures. Once a system has been compromised (by one of the above methods, or in some other way), one or more backdoors may be installed in order to allow easier access in the future. Backdoors may also be installed prior to malicious software, to allow attackers entry.

   

  The idea has often been suggested that computer manufacturers preinstall backdoors on their systems to provide technical support for customers, but this has never been reliably verified. Crackers typically use backdoors to secure remote access to a computer, while attempting to remain hidden from casual inspection. To install backdoors crackers may use Trojan horses, worms, or other methods.

• Spyware programs are commercially produced for the purpose of gathering information about computer users, showing them pop-up ads, or altering web-browser behavior for the financial benefit of the spyware creator. For instance, some spyware programs redirect search engine results to paid advertisements. Others, often called "stealware" by the media, overwrite affiliate marketing codes so that revenue is redirected to the spyware creator rather than the intended recipient.

   

  Spyware programs are sometimes installed as Trojan horses of one sort or another. They differ in that their creators present themselves openly as businesses, for instance by selling advertising space on the pop-ups created by the malware. Most such programs present the user with an end-user license agreement that purportedly protects the creator from prosecution under computer contaminant laws. However, spyware EULAs have not yet been upheld in court.

   

  Another way that financially-motivated malware creators can profit from their infections is to directly use the infected computers to do work for the creator. The infected computers are used as proxies to send out spam messages. A computer left in this state is often known as a zombie computer. The advantage to spammers of using infected computers is they provide anonymity, protecting the spammer from prosecution. Spammers have also used infected PCs to target anti-spam organizations with distributed denial-of-service attacks.

   

  In order to coordinate the activity of many infected computers, attackers have used coordinating systems known as botnets. In a botnet, the malware or malbot logs in to an Internet Relay Chat channel or other chat system. The attacker can then give instructions to all the infected systems simultaneously. Botnets can also be used to push upgraded malware to the infected systems, keeping them resistant to antivirus software or other security measures.

   

  It is possible for a malware creator to profit by stealing sensitive information from a victim. Some malware programs install a key logger, which intercepts the user's keystrokes when entering a password, credit card number, or other information that may be exploited. This is then transmitted to the malware creator automatically, enabling credit card fraud and other theft. Similarly, malware may copy the CD key or password for online games, allowing the creator to steal accounts or virtual items.

   

  Another way of stealing money from the infected PC owner is to take control of a dial-up modem and dial an expensive toll call. Dialer (or porn dialer) software dials up a premium-rate telephone number such as a U.S. "900 number" and leave the line open, charging the toll to the infected user.

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• The hook-and-loop fastener was invented in 1941 by Swiss engineer, George de Mestral^[5][7][8] who lived in Commugny, Switzerland. The idea came to him one day after returning from a hunting trip with his dog in the Alps. He took a close look at the burrs (seeds) of burdock that kept sticking to his clothes and his dog's fur. He examined them under a microscope, and noted their hundreds of "hooks" that caught on anything with a loop, such as clothing, animal fur, or hair. ^[3] He saw the possibility of binding two materials reversibly in a simple fashion,^[8] if he could figure out how to duplicate the hooks and loops.^[5]
• Velcro got its first break when it was used in the aerospace industry to help astronauts maneuver in and out of bulky space suits.

• BMW owns: BMW, Mini, and Rolls Royce
   
   Fiat owns: Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Fiat, Lancia, Maserati; Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep–20-percent stake
   
   Ford Motor Company owns: Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Volvo (for now), and still owns 13.4 percent of Mazda
   
   General Motors owns: Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC. Also owns a controlling interest in Daewoo, as well as Opel and Vauxhall in Europe and Holden in Australia. (Pontiac to be discontinued)
   
   Honda owns: Honda, Acura
   
   Hyundai owns: Hyundai, Kia
   
   Tata Motors (India) owns: Jaguar and Land Rover
   
   Mazda (partially owned by Ford)
   
   Mitsubishi
   
   Daimler AG owns: Mercedes-Benz and Smart
   
   Nissan owns: Nissan and Infiniti (Nissan is owned by Renault--France)
   
   Porsche owns: Porsche and a majority share in Volkswagen
   
   Subaru (A controlling interest of Subaru is owned by Toyota)
   
   Suzuki
   
   Toyota Motor Company owns: Lexus, Toyota, Scion, Daihatsu and Hino Motors, with a stake in Fuji Industries (Subaru’s parent company) and Isuzu
   
   Volkswagen owns: Audi, Volkswagen, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, and overseas SEAT and Skoda.
   
   In formal negotiations to be sold:
   
   Hummer: Tengzhong (China)
   Saturn: Penske Automotive Group
   Saab: Koenigsegg (Sweden)